Bill Ivey, U.S. author and advocate for matters creative has been struggling for years to make a new language for arts policy. Douglas McLennan, the editor of Arts Journal, recently hosted a week-long conversation dissecting Ivey’s concept, Expressive Life. Douglas begins by asking, ‘are the terms “Art” and “Culture” tough enough to frame a public [...]

ccdnsw shut up shop last week after failing to renegotiate continued financial support from the NSW state government. In justifying the decision, NSW Arts Minister Virginia Judge, is quoted in the Sun-Herald as saying:  ‘ccdnsw is an advisory body.  It does not create or program any arts events.  [That is, it doesn’t offer me enough [...]

There’s a comprehensive piece in today’s Australian on Maureen Wheeler’s philanthropic initiatives.  Her support of the Centre for Books, Writing and Ideas is wonderful. However, towards the end of the article, Ms Wheeler offers an analysis of the place of the arts in the hierarchy of human needs with which I feel obliged to take [...]

Simon Brault, head of Canada’s National Theatre School and vice-chair of the Canada Council for the Arts has become the latest spokesperson for the need for government to acknowledge, honour and support ‘amateur practices’. Dismissing the preoccupation of arts funding agencies with ‘audience development’, he is pushing for an arts version of ‘Participaction’ (a Canadian [...]

I never thought that I’d find myself on the same side of an argument as the Chair of Fosters. But when his antagonists are the rabidly right wing media, led by a bunch of so-called journalists claiming to speak on behalf of the people of Australia, it’s impossible just to sit silent and observe the [...]

Yesterday, I gave the final session of the lecture series I’ve been doing at Melbourne Uni. Normally, Kat McFerran and I co-deliver, but as she was off doing another gig, we decided to use the last session to show the students the recent pbs(US) doco, The Music Instinct because, as well as being well made, [...]

It’s way too late at night for me to be thinking clearly, but I have to put this stuff up, if only because of its synchronicity. On the western side of the Pacific, we have Oz Arts Minister Peter Garrett announcing a ten point framework that may lead to a national cultural policy. And, on [...]

I’ve had a series of overhead projections (being unwilling to engage with PowerPoint) for some years now that I’ve been using as summaries of various aspects of my post Four Pillar thinking. Viewed sequentially, they read a bit like a guide through the rooms of the virtual building for which the pillars are the facade.  [...]

This morning I received Circular 33 from the Agenda 21 for Culture crew in Barcelona. It announces the online publication of a report by Jordi Pascual entitled ‘Culture and sustainable development: examples of institutional innovation and proposal of a new cultural policy profile’. Jordi has been pushing a ‘fourth pillar’ perspective for some years now [...]

I’ve just added two more charts to the library: Lives of Artists and Money isn’t everything. The first is my attempt to describe some of the ways that those who must make art find to survive; the second is an attempt to outline the resources that would enable communities to realise their full creative capacities.